


no false pretences

by defractum (nyargles)



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 22:31:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13750551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyargles/pseuds/defractum
Summary: “Neil Josten, athletics team,” says Andrew, and it sounds like a threat.AU where Neil joins the track and field team at Palmetto instead of the Foxes.





	no false pretences

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ephemeralsky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ephemeralsky/gifts).



> A pinch-hit for nakasomethingkun as part of the AFTG Exchange.

 

Lying on the ground in pain is not a new feeling for Neil Josten. The fact that said pain has been caused by a blond student in orange sweatpants – well, that is new.

Neil thought he’d kept enough of a distance. He hadn’t touched an Exy racquet since high school, and had joined the track and field team when he got to Palmetto. He wasn’t on scholarship, but the fees hadn’t been an issue and once the assistant coach had seen his middle-distance times, she’d told him that he’d probably be able to get one for next year. Neil still isn’t sure he’ll be around next year, but she’d been excited and he had let her talk.

He jogged past the bright orange stadium four times a day, and if his gaze lingered on it once or twice, he never stepped foot in. Until now. He’d seen the cars parked outside, and all the sports teams practised at the same time anyway. It couldn’t hurt – he could just watch from the top of the bleachers. The players would be tiny specks and he would be equally invisible from that distance.

The security is better than at Millport but knowing how to pick a lock is knowing how to pick a lock. The stadium is cold compared to the glaring heat of the late summer sun, and Neil feels goosebumps rise down the length of his legs, barely covered by his running shorts.

Neil hadn’t counted on two of the players doing some sort of jog through the stands, appearing just as he eases through the doors. He startles, and attempts to slide back through them, but there’s a fist in his t-shirt before he can, and another in the gut, and then he’s on the floor, wheezing as his body spasms for oxygen.

He throws his arms up – he knows how to defend himself, even if he’s not often successful at it – and squints through his arms up at the Exy player.

Stocky, blond, and coolly appraising him from head to foot; Neil recognises him as one of the Minyard twins, and probably Andrew given the attack first, ask later approach.

The question, when it came, was lazy, almost dismissive. “What do you want?”

“Nothing,” says Neil.

Andrew doesn’t even have to say anything for Neil to know he doesn’t believe him. His eyes latch onto the shirt Neil’s wearing, clinging to him like shrinkwrap even though it’s too big for him because he’s sweated through it.

“Neil Josten, athletics team,” says Andrew, and it sounds like a threat.

“Oh good, you can read,” mutters Neil as he scrabbles backward away from Andrew and pulls himself up using the back of a seat. He resists the urge to cover the writing on his shirt; it’s already been read now.

The other player chips in then, a girl with multi-coloured hair and a peaceful smile that has Neil more suspicious than any glare could make him. Renee, Neil knows from the research he’s done. “Can we help you?”

“I was just–” Neil gestures at the court. “Curious.”

“Are you an Exy fan?”

“Not really,” lies Neil. He’s very aware of the way Andrew is still there, silently watching. “I just heard the news. About Kevin Day joining the team. He’s pretty famous, right?”

There’s a pause. “That’s him there,” says Renee, pointing down to the figures on the court, as if Neil wouldn’t have been able to pick Kevin out from a crowd a mile away. Kevin cradles the ball in his racquet, bounces it off the wall and catches it again before flinging it at the goal. The red lights flare, even in practice.

“Cool,” says Neil, as a bead of sweat trickles down his neck. That’s a thing that people say, right?

“You’ve seen him, now you can leave,” says Andrew.

What else can Neil do? He nods to the both of them, and lets himself out of the building as casually as he can manage.

If he had his head screwed on straight, he’d have packed his things and left that afternoon. Anyone in the Exy world knowing his name, even his fake name, is enough to endanger him, and this isn’t just anyone – Andrew Minyard is basically Kevin’s shadow.

Neil had promised himself a chance at college, and life, but only if it was away from Exy. Palmetto State was big enough that he could never cross paths with any of the players. It hasn’t stopped him from following matches online but that had been as close as he’d got, and now he’s all but one removed from Kevin himself.

As the sunlight hits him again, Neil looks back at the stadium. He’s got Spanish tomorrow, and he likes that class. The track team are doing relay drills after individual practice and he’s second leg – good, but not in any danger of getting a Rookie of the Year award or anything like that. They clap and cheer for him when he gets a personal best, even if he barely speaks to any of them outside of training, and they’re already talking to student residences to see if they can get him transferred into the sports accommodation tower.

If he grabs his bag and runs… well, he doesn’t really know what would be next. So he picks up his pace, and jogs back towards the athletics track.

He stays, for now.

The next time Neil lets himself get dragged into the Exy world is when the Foxes have a home game. He could watch this on TV, but what’s the point, when it’s happening just down the road?

He gets seats about halfway up the stands behind the Fox goal. A couple of the other guys on the team are with him, more as an excuse to let lose and disparage someone else’s sport for once, and Neil nods along when some of them explain Exy terms, pretending not to know much about it.

Andrew usually plays the first half and Neil spends more time than he should watching his back. He’s good, _really_ good. Efficient with his movements and level-headed under pressure, which given how awful the Foxes are, is all the time. It’s one thing for Neil to know it, to see the figures on his laptop screen, but it’s different in person.

There’s a moment, when Andrew turns around in the second quarter just after deflecting a goal, it feels like he locks eyes with Neil. It couldn’t be; Neil is way too far away and just one amongst all the orange-clad students, but it feels like that.

The Foxes scrape a draw; Kevin is single-handedly dragging the team behind him. Neil slips away from the after-parties and goes back to his dorm to download the game and rewatch it.

The next day, Neil drags himself up to morning training and finds Andrew sitting in the stands, watching them warm up.

Neil’s heart skips a beat in what he’s pretty sure is fear, but he studiously ignores him as they run through their stretches and warm up. It’s turning cold now, but most of them are still wearing strong vests and shorts in anticipate of being too warm afterwards.

Their coach keeps them moving so they don’t cool down too much, but every time he sneaks a look at Andrew out of the corner of his eye, Andrew is still there, still watching him.

He heads up the stands once they’re done. His shower is going to have to be super short if he’s going to make his first class, but he’s got to wait until the rest of the team are done anyway. Andrew is still there, as if he’d anticipated Neil coming up to speak to him.

“Neil Josten, athletics team. I thought you weren’t really an Exy fan.” It looks like Andrew really did spot Neil in the crowd last time. Neil has no idea what to make of this.

“What do you want?” he asks, cutting straight to the point. Even though his entire body is exhausted, the balls of his feet are itchy, ready to run.

“Nothing,” says Andrew, an echo of their previous conversation. He exhales cigarette smoke and the smell of it involuntarily takes Neil back two years; he leans forward to breathe it in unconsciously. “Yet.”

Neil tries to keep a poker face, even as irritation flares within. He just wants to know what Andrew’s deal is and if he’s going to be a problem. He hates that antsy feeling of not knowing. “Don’t you have morning training too?”

Andrew hums noncommittally.

“What are you doing here instead?”

“Watching you, obviously,” says Andrew.

Neil scowls. If this is all he’s going to get out of him, he’s wasting his time. Instead, he moves into his cool down routine, long languid stretches with his legs propped up on the seats.

“You broke into the stadium.”

Neil curses internally. He’d forgotten about that bit. It’s a lot harder to pass his presence that day in the foxhole court that day off as casual curiosity when he has to explain why he had to bypass the locks on the door to get in.

“To catch a glimpse of Kevin Day, you said.” Andrew stubs his cigarette out and stands, raking his eyes up and down Neil’s dishevelled frame before raising an eyebrow at the visible proof that Andrew got under his skin so much that he legged it up here without even bothering to towel off. There’s something in Andrew’s look that Neil can’t quite recognise or place, but it’s not setting any alarm bells off in his head.

“Oh, don’t stop on my account,” says Andrew, smiling a bit too widely. Neil realises that at some point, he’d frozen halfway through a deep lunge and goes back to his stretches, even though he’s not remotely concentrating on them anymore.

“I could report you, you know,” continues Andrew, casually.

Neil shrugs. He gets the feeling that’s not the point of this conversation – if he really wanted to, he would have already. “Like I said, what do you want from me? It’s clearly not nothing.”

Andrew regards him for a long moment, and Neil braces himself for anything from torture to blackmail. “Come out this weekend.”

Whatever he’d been expecting, it hadn’t been that. “What?”

“Clubbing. There’s a club we go to.”

Neil does a couple of squats and shakes out his thighs and snorts. “And why would I do that?”

“To dance, of course.” Andrew raises his fists and manages to bop them in the most sarcastic manner Neil has ever seen. He drops his hands to step in close, close enough that Neil can smell the cigarette smoke off his breath, and adds. “Or perhaps it’s so I can make sure you’re not stalking Kevin.”

“I’m _not_ stalking Kevin.”

“Good.” He pats Neil once on the cheek, and shoulders his way past. “It’ll be fun. It’s a date. I’ll pick you up at seven.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come hit me up on [tumblr](http://www.defractum.tumblr.com)!


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